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Casbaa: Regulations are “Over the Top”
MUMBAI: With markets, providers and consumers racing to deliver multichannel video anywhere, anytime and on any device, regulatory frameworks are not keeping up.
A new Casbaa study, A Tilted Playing Field: Asia-Pacific Pay-TV and OTT, provides a comprehensive review of the gulf between pay-TV guidelines and current over-the-top (OTT) television regulations.
The findings show governments imposing heavy burdens on traditional multichannel TV content delivery systems (cable TV, DTH, “walled garden” IPTV, etc.) which must compete with largely unregulated internet-based TV services including “catch-up” TV, live streaming, “TV Everywhere” offerings, video-on-demand streaming and user-generated uploads.
Arguably, however, the most dangerous challenge comes from providers of illegal, unauthorised offshore OTT services.
Casbaa chief policy officer John Medeiros said, “The pirate video transmission business is the most international, least law-abiding, and lowest taxpaying of any segment of the global media business.
“The pirate model is now dominating the commercial conversation. Steps must be taken to block growth of the illegitimate OTT sector – to prevent offshore pirate video operators from continuing to grow business models based on misuse and theft of the legitimate industries‘ content.”
The report draws attention to the difficult task facing traditional pay-TV operators in the face of competitive challengers – legal as well as pirate – that don‘t face the same burdens from government regulation. Across the 14 markets including India covered by the CASBAA study, most Asian jurisdictions‘ OTT services remain subject only to relatively loose regulations applied to internet services.
Governments which allow this “tilted playing field and unhealthy competitive environment to persist will see their own creative industries damaged, local broadcasters weakened, and investment in networks and content impaired,” added Marcel Fenez, Chairman of CASBAA.
There will be conversation on online piracy at the CASBAA Convention in Hong Kong on 31 October. In the panel ‘After Megaupload – Online Piracy in Asia and Beyond‘ content owners and pay-TV platforms compare notes about the problem, what it‘s doing to their respective businesses, and what might be done about it.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
